Sucre: Cutting through red tape... with a machete!

Oh well, might as well write this of my chest whilst I´m still feeling the coffee-buzz amplifying 5 days (excluding Good friday and the weekend) of pure frustration.

I´m not good dealing with idiots at the best of times and thankfully I´ve never realy had to deal with any in a work situation. So far we´ve experienced Bolivians as friendly and heavilly underpaid. I think by now we have discovered there´s a reason why most of them are underpaid:
- They have no sense of urgency.
- They have no concept of service, or helping people in any simple way.
- They have no concept of processes, let alone do more than one thing at a time.
- One could argue, they actually know anything at all about their job.
- Or in short, they´re just plain stupid.....

This just sums up the people in what is apparently the largest immigration office in Bolivia.

Day 1, last Thursday: We decided to be proactive. Bin´s visa was to run out, and we´d have to pay to get it extended with another 30 days. Note that the payment for this extention is more than the average wage here ! She still had a few days left, but we were not going to risk the office being closed all of the holy week around Easter. At there at 2.30 on the dot, door not open, a couple of locals knocking on the door and of course being turned away. After standing infront of a disinterested security guard for 15 minutes who refused to make eye contact, we eventually found the right person in the office, later found out her name was Claudia (she´s one of the stars in this story). She couldn´t tell us how many days we should get for free on a visa (2 options here, depending on the country it´s a)30 days, or b)90 days, very hard). Tried to explain with hands and feet that we didn´t mind extending it early, but she and another guy still sent us away, "come back Monday"! Knowing that was easter Monday, we were surprised.

Note: Our spanish classes are 8.30am till 12.30pm, so we have to go to immigration in the afternoon.

Day 2, Monday: Arrive at office again at 2.30pm, pick up truck at front door. "Sorry, office closed, we´re moving, come back to the new office on Wednesday". Slightly surprised given we had specifically asked if the office was open on Monday. Surely anyone with a bit of knowlege about their work would know this - thanks Claudia - would know this when telling people to come back later ....
Again explaining Bin´s visa would run out Tuesday. Wednesday would be too late.
The friendly man at the door (later we heard his name was Limber, another headliner here)clearly giving us an answer that would remove us from his doorstep, told us to come back to the new office on Tuesday and ask again.

Day 3: Bin and I had decided that it would be a good "field trip" for our Spanish teachers to experience to come with us to the immigration office. Our reason being that it would be good to have spanish speakers with us who could help explain why we were not able to renew Bin´s visa and thus get fined! So, armed with Mercedes and Omar (Mercedes, Bin´s teacher who speaks plenty of English) we headed to the new address. Not only did we have enough trouble finding the office, but when we did, the information/guard officer gave us the response that would get us out of his new office and presence, so he turned us away and told us to come back after 4pm when the systems would be online again. Please take note of the word systems in bold here.
So we went back at 4, finding people shuffling all sorts of boxes and furniture around (note this is our 4th visit). In the office, we found 4 people, with one PC (which had solitair on it´s screen), all saying that they could not help us as the systems were not online. Again, I cannot stress enough, note the word systems in bold!

Day 4: Decided it was not worth the sacrifice of more spanish class time, so head back in the afternoon. Mistake no 2, don´t get to the door before 2.30 to be first in line. Please note we had made sufficient copies of passport and tourists cards by now and a photocopy here costs about 3 cents of a US Dolar..... we get pointed to a queue with some stangely arranged chairs. Only later worked out that the queue system works like musical chairs. Next one in stands up, and everyone shifts one seat. one of the locals in queue (note, not someone working there) points us back to our good friend Claudia! Bit worried already, so head to her, hand her the passports, and she starts asking people about the length of tourist visas, again. So far, no good. Recognize a street vendor as well, who apparently was back as well for the 3rd time. Claudia left his papers undealt with, to peruse through our passports. she then gets up, leaves the passports unattended at her desk and walks around the office to watch other people move furniture around.... at this point I also notice "Don Juan" (don´t know his name, but he deserves a cameo here anyway, if only for his slick hair, sunnies, and clothes - he likes the number 7 I think) being online in one or the other Chat programs. Somehow I thought this was good news as this should mean that their systems are online! Eventually the police officer behind Claudia´s desk picks up the passports, has a peruse through them, tries to call someone (no reply) and asks us to wait (very friendly still) and then.... walks us straight past the queue into Limber´s office, who´s attending to someone else.....
We´d already been in the office for over an hour now.
A bit of confusing spanish directions, which make no sense to us and eventually seem to have no relevance, Limber finally starts filling out small forms for us. He then points Bin to the front office to pay the 175 Bolivianos (approx 22US$) to someone. That person, without speaking, pulls out a bit more paperwork, makes a folder (in paper that is), heads back to Limber´s office, probably to ask what he´s supposed to do, comes back, starts pulling out Visa stickers, starts writing a line into a very, very big book and adds part of the visa sticker as well, Bin signs, pay the 175, almost closes the book, gets up, sits down, opens the safe, pulls out more stickers, fills them out and adds them to the file, asks for another Boliviano (10 bolivianos are US$1.25), is confused having to get out change (which I already gave him), and then points us back to the same queue in front of Limber´s office......
So back in queue and later, once the game of musical chairs seems to have changed into a "push and shove" contact sport, we pretty much stormed into the office as soon as the door opens. Bin makes it, I have to wait outside. Please note that I have no idea where my passport is at this time. She gets in and apparently my passport is more or less done (free 90 days for Europeans). She gets through a bit more paperwork however, now one of the required 2 copies of her passport is missing. The copy we left on Limber´s desk but he refuses to admit that it could possibly be there (he´s lost any remaining brownie points at this point). So I run outside again and get another 3ct copy. Funny, out of the 175 Bolivianos we paid for the visa, they´re not willing to cop the 0.20 Bol cost of making a photocopy. get the copy back, copy get´s added to the file, "please come back tomorrow afternoon as we need to get someone´s signature for authorisation".................

Day 5, today, Thursday: Head back before 2.30am (we do learn) through the rain. Wait at the door underneath a very narrow awning whilst it´s raining resonably hard, for the door to open at 2.35 or thereabouts.
trucks race through the city streets and in movie style fashion water is sprayed from their tyres onto whatever part of our clothing is not wet already.
Now, just to point out that we are dealing with a complete bunch of idiots here, the lady who opens the door had to get in via a backdoor, then gets back to the front door with a keyring with at least 15 numbered (!?!?!) keys on it and only manages to open the door on the 11th attempt with the 11th key. Please note that at least 6 or 7 keys she tried to put in the keyhole upside down.... very funny, very funny indeed.
Storm in with wet feet and shoes, straight to the office of Limber, but he won´t help us and we´re asked to sit down in a rearranged set of chairs (someone obviously had a bit of time on their hands). One of the ladies who came in after us walks straight past and starts talking to him anyway.
Bin is eventually let in and is asked for another photocopy of the sticker they put in her passport. Note a few things here: a) the dates and signatures are on the visa sticker now; b) they´ve had the passport all day and night; c) we saw them install the photocopier the day before and; d) the price of photocopies hasn´t gone up over night. Bin in her improved spanish asks many questions why the photocopy hasn´t been made already and in the end Limber asks her to get Claudia to make the copy..... I shouldn´t have to explain this, but after looking at the passport for a minute or so, Claudia obviously decides she´s not there to work, and points Bin back to Limber and also tells Limber they don´t do copies for anyone. So, I´m running out again across the street, for another 0.3 cent photocopy, and back again. Copy gets added to file, file gets closed, we walk out and go for a coffee (bin gets baileys in hers) in a gringo-run cafe........

..... anyone notice any systems being used in this story, apart from MSN chat or Solitair??

There´s a well known British expresion: He´s one card short of a full deck. I think it would be very hard to find any cards in this deck/office..........


Please note, we´re still well and safe !

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